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My passion project sees the light of day! What can you do with it? Create builds! Export/import them! Make a build, press Summarize, then use one of the copy buttons below. Look at what abilities do! Mouse over icons on desktop; press icons on mobile/tablet. I don't have any inside info - the data is from fansites and videos - so there are some assumptions behind it that may not be correct: You get one point per level, starting at 2. There are no bonus skill points. The level cap is 25. This I'm pretty sure of, because there is no level 25 tier (which there should be if the cap were 30 or higher), but Iron Fists rank 4 requires level 25. You don't have to spend ability points as soon as you get them. You can hoard them. You can wait until you're level 20 and then learn all level 20 abilities at once. Therefore, the calculator lets you skip levels/hoard points if you turn off strict mode. As a result of these assumptions, there is a maximum of 24 points you can spend in my calculator. This may very well be wrong, so don't take it as gospel. I would love to know if you know/think differently! I have faithfully copied the data as written, other than fixing a few typos here and there, but the following are probably not correct: Rank 2 Corrosive Siphon can permastun an enemy. Freezing Pillar, Blackbow and Pull of Eora can be learned without finding them in a grimoire. These are the only spells that require Grimoire Mastery without having to be learned from a grimoire. I expect they do in fact need to be learned from a grimoire. Sniper is 25% for all ranks. Looking at other passives that are 25% at rank 1, it's probably supposed to be 25%/40%/50% or 25%/35%/40%. And now for some questions you may have about the tool... I want to make a max level build and/or not worry about build order. Turn off strict mode. I exported, but didn't get the build order I had in mind. When you play around and reduce skill levels while in strict mode, the calculator will try to keep your build intact and valid rather than force you to start over, but it cannot always figure out the order when you do this. If you want to be sure it gets the order right, start over and only increase skills to get your build. If you didn't lower any skills while building and the order still ended up wrong, do let me know. I can't increase this skill, why? You've spent all 24 points, the skill has no more ranks, you're missing a pre-requisite (Grimoire Mastery or Unbreakable), or you're in strict mode and taking the skill would cause you to skip levels. I can't lower this skill, why? It's a pre-requisite (Grimoire Mastery or Unbreakable) for a skill you still have. Get rid of that skill first. I have an issue with the calculator. What should I do? Post it here! I have a suggestion for the calculator. What should I do? Post it here! I have made a build that I want to talk about. What should I do? Post it! But not here. Give your build the space it deserves with its own thread!

Here's the trailer for Solasta II. I'm stoked for this game

I've always wanted to play as Roche, where instead of choosing to level up and use various Signs, you would level up and use various expletives and insults.

Long photo heavy post! Cone to go?

Yeah, never eat mushrooms. Eating mushrooms is smurf domicide.

I always liked how Obs handled diversity in Deadfire, i.e. they just put it there along with world building for it to make sense, no fanfares or shining a spotlight on it.

Based on some forum posts and user reviews, in terms of the Indy game I think this is mostly going to be dependent on resolution and settings one personally tolerates. Outside of the "needs a rtx capable card", ofc. I mean it sounds like the visual differences with settings aren't super extreme - a trend I've noticed happening over recent years in a lot of games, actually - and one has to remember that while actually playing, most aren't staring at every pixel to notice fine differences, like all these comparison videos emphasize. In terms of upgrading GPU's - I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist but it does make one feel like AAA devs/nvidia are working together to force people to buy the top tier cards - eg, gimping the 60/70/80 series re: vram. >.> I've said it before and I'll say it again - it may be "slower" generation but the 11gb of vram in my 2080ti (and sometimes, dlss, of course) is probably what has allowed to me to marginally still run some of these games at 4k at my personal tolerance of 45-60fps/mid-high settings etc. I refuse to do less than dlss-quality tho. I've tried. "Balanced" dlss still looks like crap, imo. I might as well just drop the native resolution to 1440, then.

Luckily I was able to return the coat. I don't need to make an onlyfans account after all.

Stop over at Shanghai airport. Friend I am traveling with went for a smoke and missed boarding. Tried getting around Tokyo with two huge suitcases and both our carry on. People were quite amused. As one lady said: "You must have a lot of kids" probably thinking I was carrying presents for all of the little rascals. I knew passive smoking was bad.

Oh my god, guys. I finally did it. My weapon started to break down near the end, so I had to do the last couple attacks with barely dealing any damage. It was really damn close and I expected having to restart any second now. But for some reason Kos (or some say, Kosm...) kept missing me. Maybe my frantically dodging to the left broke the ai before it broke me. PS: Even after all those years, the spoiler function is still dog poop. Why can't I edit text inside a spoiler? Why is there no markup editor here? Terrible forum software.

Because then Putin wins.

This build was created for a collaboration with @Aestus who runs the Youtube channel Aestus_RPG. This is build 2 of 3 from that collaboration. You can find a link to that video down below. ----------------------------------------- This build is mainly meant for inspiration. You don't need to follow it in detail to have fun. If you understand the key features - the basic idea what makes this build special - you can usually deviate from non-core attribute-, skill-, gear- and ability selection and form the build to your own likings and ideas. ----------------------------------------- n the Living Lands, there exists a Druid named Rhuar - a rugged, rather ugly man with a deep connection to the natural world. Born in a small, secluded village on the fringes of a vast forest, Rhuar spent his youth learning the ways of both nature and martial combat. His affinity for the land and its tasty bugs was nurtured by the village's ancient traditions, passed down through generations of Druids. Rhuar discovered his spiritshift ability early on - able to transform into a wild boar, a creature of strength and resilience, embodying the untamed power of the wilderness - aaand able to sniff all the tasty bugs! This transformation not only granted him unparalleled endurance and a welcome snack every now and then, but also the remarkable ability to regenerate, healing wounds with every blow he takes. As a boar, Rhuar is a force of (dirty) nature, charging through enemies with ferocity and amouthful of chitin. But even when not in his animal form, Rhuar remains a formidable fighter. His years of training in hand-to-hand combat have turned him into a skilled pugilist. With fists like iron, he strikes with precision, using his human form to deliver punishing blows that complement his druidic powers. Though Rhuar’s life is simple, it is not without turmoil: driven by an unyielding sense of duty to protect the natural world from encroaching dangers and the wish to dig up some squishy worms from time to time, he roams the land, seeking balance between the feral instincts of his wild boar form and the wisdom of his human heart. Whether in battle or in peace, Rhuar is a guardian of nature a warrior with the soul of a beast and a tummy full of tasty bugs. =================================== The Vigorous Warthog =================================== Difficulty: PotD -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Druid -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Human (or Aumaua, Dwarf, Nature Godlike) -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: The Living Lands - Colonist -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 20 (+1 Living Lands) CON: 14 DEX: 12 PER: 12 INT: 16 RES: 04 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Survival 12, Athletics 9 -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) 2: Wildstrike Shock (!)(or whatever element you like) 4: Novice's Suffering(!) 6: Veteran's Recovery(!) 8: Weapon Focus Peasant(r) 10: Greater Wildstrike Shock(r) 12: Two-Weapon-Style(r) 14: Outlander's Frenzy 16: Heart of the Storm Abilities 9: Spell Mastery: Nature's Vigor 11: Spell Mastery: Taste of the Hunt 13: Spell Mastery: Nature's Balm 15: Spell Mastery: Form of the Delemgan Story Talents: - Second Skin - Dungeon Delver - Song of the Heavens - Galawain's Boon (+1 MIG) - Gift from the Machine (+1 MIG) - Effigy's Resentment: Maneha (+1 MIG) --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (!=important, r=recommended): Weapon Set 1: fists (!)(Novice's Suffering) Weapon Set 2: two hatchets (r) Boots: Sandals of the Forgotten Friar (r) Head: Hermit's Hat Armor: Wayfarer's Hide/Sanguine Plate Neck: Mantle of the Dying Boar (obviously )/Fulvano's Amulet Belt: Wildstrike Belt® Rings: Pensiavi mes Rèi, Ring of Thorns Hands: Mourning Gloves/Gauntlets of Swift Action --------------------------------------------------------------- Hi again! Another late build for PoE - I was invited for a second interview by @Aestus again, this time for PoE: And since I talked about some PoE build ideas in the forum but never posted them, we thought this was a good opportunity to do so. The Vigorous Warthog is a Boar Druid - obviously. The Boar form grants two very good abilities while shifted: a wounding lash on your tusk weapons and also a constant regeneration effect similar to a Fighter's Constant Recovery. Speaking of Constant Recovery: the cross-class talent "Veteran's Recovery" does stack with the boar regeneration so we'll take it, too. We can build around those things and create a Druid who is surprisingly sturdy and at the same time does great melee damage while shifted, especially against enemies with thick armor. Wounding - as you might already know - scales with Might, and the healing you do does as well - so we have a double motivation to raise our Might high. This also helps all our spells that deal damage and heal us and others. We want to deal the majority of our melee damage when shifted - but Spiritshift is not endless and often enough we will shift back before the fight is over. For that we might need some fitting backup weapons. Best to use some who don't need a lot of mony and resources to be good, they are for backup only after all. Soulbound weapons come to mind or even a summoned weapon such as Firebrand: they scale without resources. Or - just hear me out - we use our fists. Novice's Suffering works in a weird way: it leaves your fists' base damage untouched but instead adds a rahter big flat damage bonus to them. Since most damage bonuses use the weapons' base damage as... well... base, adding damage bonuses to fists doesn't do much. But on the flipside damage maluses like grazes also don't influence the damage output much. The flat bonus however doesn't get influenced by anything - except Might! Yes, again Might - another reason to pump it. This leads to a set of backup weapons that does increbibly consistent damage, even if the wearer hasn't that much accuracy (like a Druid for example). And except the talent point they cost nothing. Later we add the Sandals of the Forgotten Friar. They add a second (small) flat dmg bonus to unarmed attacks and is also influenced by Might. Now we maxize it during character creation (Dwarf, Aumaua or Human for bonus Might - or even Nature Godlike for the chance to get stackable +3 MIG when under 50% endurance) and use a nice +MIG item (I chose a ring but it doesn't really matter). Outlander's Frenzy can give us another +3 MIG. But we can also use the Sanguine Plate for that: wait until you were hit by a crit and Frenzy procs, then spiritshift: the Frenzy will stay with you - and you spared a talent point. I picked the Wayfarer's Hide however - mostly because of the looks. Use the Blighthollow Resting in Caed Nua for +3 extra Might, it lasts for 3 rests in the wilderness. Make sure to pick up the Wildstrike Belt. What it does it pretty amazing (and obscured by its vague description): it will ad 10% to your Wildstrike damage it says. But what it really does: It adds +10% to your Wildstrike lash, raising it from 30% to 40%. But it also adds 10% to your Greater Wildstrike lash! Those two are separate lashes - and the latter one is only 15% which has to overcome enemies DR/4, too. Low lashes often get eaten up by enemies DR, so raiing this 15% lash to a 25% lash is great. Now your Wildstrike does +40% elemental lash damage and +25% elemental lash damage. No it's totally worth it to pick up one of the elemental damage talents like Heart of the Storm. It will raise both lashes, too: from 40% to 48% and from 25% to 30%. Now you do almost as much lash damage as physical tusk damage. And remember: wounding, buffed up by lots of MIG, comes on top! All Rogues who witness this go home crying and decide to attend Druid Evening School... Your Boar + Veteran's Regeneration is very good, too, allowing you to hang out at the front line after some levels. And you can always increase it with a powerful healing spell of course. The best apporach is to first cast some useful spells (Avenging Storm, Form of the Delemgan, Nature's Balm etc.) and only then rush into battle, swinging tusks left and right. And should Spieitshift end before the fight ends you can punch around with your meaty fists - or cast spells of course. Against crush-immune foes you can use a set of solid hatchets: they grant some deflection and deal slash damage - and they share the same weapon focus as fists. 99% of times you won't need them though. Since Novice's Suffering fists don't profit much from damage bonuses I skipped Savage Attack, Appr. Sneak Attack etc. and instead focused on Might, speed and lash improvement. Cheers and have fun!

https://newrepublic.com/post/174950/christianity-today-editor-evangelicals-call-jesus-liberal-weak

Cause look to Disney to see that milking out dans favourite without a story to go with ot doesn’t go that well. Witcher3 wrapped up Geralt as a character. Sure, you could drag him back, but in the best case scenario they would undermine W3. I had three games with Geralt they ended with a high note and CDPR to move forward is a welcome sign to me. According to the interview on FPS podcast Geralt is still in the world, so we will see him, but CDPR is doing to expore a new character. It could be good it could be bad, we will see. Ciri should give them space to try something new. edit. I am quite surprised that there are people who are surprised that Ciri is the protagonist - that should be the most obvious choice for those who played and finished Witcher3. When someone asks „why Ciri” my counter question would be „have you ever played previous games?”

*Laughs in wood burning stove*

Guys, like, @MrBrown is talking about Path of Exile 2, not Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire.

Some eastern european indie have released a trailer for their upcoming RPG. Guess it might be of some interest? (Ciri --> meh. Though it being Witcher 4 always made that choice more likely)

Looks like they got more money behind it now. Maybe it's easier to get funding after BG3? https://store.steampowered.com/app/2975950/Solasta_II/

This build was created for a collaboration with @Aestus who runs the Youtube channel Aestus_RPG. This is build 1 of 3 from that collaboration. You can find a link to that video down below. ----------------------------------------- This build is mainly meant for inspiration. You don't need to follow it in detail to have fun. If you understand the key features - the basic idea what makes this build special - you can usually deviate from non-core attribute-, skill-, gear- and ability selection and form the build to your own likings and ideas. ----------------------------------------- aldar G'Angreen was born amidst the wild and unpredictable landscapes of the Living Lands. Kaldar's clan, skilled hunters, had been living on some icy peaks of the Living Lands. From an early age, Kaldar was drawn to the quiet, mystical side of the world. His family, though tough and pragmatic, were also devoted followers of Berath, the god of death and the cycles of life. His mother, a revered herbalist and healer, had taught him the ways of plants, potions and scrolls. She also instilled in him a respect for the natural cycles of death and rebirth. Kaldar was always intrigued by the balance that Berath governed—how life, death, and the passing of seasons were all intertwined in the endless flow of time. In his youth, Kaldar began to serve as an acolyte in his clan’s small shrine to Berath. But while others focused on the priestly aspects of service, Kaldar felt a deep calling to combine his spirituality with the physical world. He spent time meditating on the inevitability of death and the necessity of killing for survival. While others saw death as a tragic end, Kaldar recognized that it was as much a part of nature as the birth of new life. For him, Berath was not a distant, abstract force, but an ever-present reminder of the cycles that governed his world. One fateful day, Kaldar’s life took a tragic turn when his clan's valley was struck by a massive avalanche caused by the eruption of a nearby volcano. It surged through the valley, sweeping away homes and lives. Kaldar’s family was torn apart in the disaster, and though Kaldar survived, he lost many loved ones, including his parents. In the aftermath of the disaster, he found himself standing on the edge of the ruined valley, staring into the snow that had claimed so much. His grief was immense, yet it was here that Berath’s voice first spoke clearly to him. Berath's words were not of comfort, but of purpose: "The cycle is not undone by mourning, but by accepting it." It was in this moment that Kaldar fully embraced his role as both priest and warrior. He vowed to honor the goddess by ensuring that the natural cycle of life and death continued, even in the face of chaos and destruction. His grief gave way to a profound understanding of the delicate balance of life, death, and rebirth, and he dedicated himself to both protecting his people and serving as a guide for those whose souls crossed into the afterlife. Kaldar took up his greatsword, a weapon forged by his ancestors and passed down to him on the day he took his vows. While his spiritual power could heal the dying, offer prayers and ease suffering, he knew that Berath’s will could sometimes only be carried out through action. His greatsword, capable of cleaving through the toughest of creatures, became a symbol of his devotion to the god of cycles. The sword now struck when Kaldar’s spells had done their work. After offering his prayers, he would pick up the weapon, his greatsword carving a path through enemies and ensuring that Berath’s will was done. Soon he was known as St. Gangrene. Now, Kaldar travels beyond his homeland, drawn to the Dyrwood by rumors of imbalances in the cycle of life and death. He has heard whispers of unnatural occurrences - a plague that refuses to end, souls that do not pass to the newborn and deaths that seem wrong, as if they were taken before their time. Kaldar believes that Berath is calling him to right these wrongs, and he knows that his strength and his divine connection will be crucial to restoring balance. His true purpose lies in bringing death when necessary, but also ensuring that life flourishes where it is meant to. But mostly bringing death when necessary... =================================== St. Gangrene =================================== Difficulty: PotD -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Priest -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Dwarf (optional) -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: The Living Lands - Colonist -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 21 (+1 Living Lands) CON: 10 DEX: 15 PER: 14 INT: 15 RES: 03 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Survival 8, Lore 10, Athletics 8 -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) 2: Inspiring Radiance® 4: The Pallid Hand® 6: Weapon Focus Soldier® 8: Aggrandizing Radiance® 10: Runner’s Wounding Shot 12: Two Handed Style 14: Apprentice's Sneak Attack 16: Savage Attack Abilities 9: Spell Mastery: Blessing 11: Spell Mastery: Holy Power®, retrain to Instill Doubt at lvl 15 bc. of Apprentice’s Sneak Attack 13: Spell Mastery: Dire Blessing 15: Spell Mastery: Devotions for the Faithful® Story Talents: - The Merciless Hand - Dungeon Delver - Song of the Heavens - Galawain's Boon (+1 MIG) --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (!=important, r=recommended): Weapon Set 1: Tidefall (!) (for hitting foes, legendary, Corrosive Lash) Weapon Set 2: Abydon’s Hammer® (more Might for casting spells) Boots: Shod in Faith® Head: Maegfolc Skull Armor: Angio’s Gambeson, Vengiatta Rugia Neck: Cloak of Comfort Belt: Girdle of the Driving Wave® Rings: Seal of Faith, Ring of Protection Hands: Gauntlets of Puissant Melee, Celebrant's Gloves --------------------------------------------------------------- Hi! Another late build for PoE - I was invited for a second interview by @Aestus again, this time for PoE: And since I talked about some PoE build ideas in the forum but never posted them, we thought this was a good opportunity to do so. St. Gangrene is a Priest of Berath who wants to hit enemies with a great sword - once all the casting is done. To do that we combine very high Might and combine it with the unique great sword Tidefall - and of course high Might is great for healing as well as damaging spells... and Holy Radiance's damage gainst vessels, too (it actually scales extremely well with MIGH in combination with tha Priest's favored dispositions, one-shotting most vessels at some point)! Later we can even use Abydon's Hammer for some extra Might when we are casting damaging or healing spells. The reason why high Might works very well with Tidefall: its wounding enchantment is a 25% raw lash, but unlike other lashes it scales with Might. More Might means higher lash damage. Higher Might also means higher weapon damage, which in turn raises the lash damage as well: win-win. You can then add some melee dmg bonuses with Savage Attack, Two-Handed Style ad Apprentice's Sneak Attack, which raises the damage further. In order to achieve ridiculos Might we maxize it during character creation (Dwarf or Aumaua, Human also works, Living Lands) and then always use the best +MIG item we can find until we get the Maegfolc Skull (+4). If combined with Holy Power, later Champion's Boon or Minor Avatar (+8 to everything) and Aggrandizing Radiance (+2 to everything, stacks) the Might score slowly grows towards 40 points. Use the Blighthollow Resting in Caed Nua for +3 extra Might, it lasts for 3 rests in the wilderness. ~40 Might means +90% damage and healing - and it turns the 25% wounding lash into a 48% lash - so to speak. Combine with a 25% elemental lash and the melee damage is pretty impressive - outright outrageous for a Priest. The healing bonus even works for healing that affects health: Wound Binding for example (you might consider taking it, it can prevent frequent resting because of los health) but also potions of Infuse with Vital Essence. If you drink such a potion before the combat ends it can restore quite some health for you. All that Might is also benefical for the second nice enchantment the weapon has: draining. With draining you'll add a portion of the damage you deal to your endurance, healing you. Lots of great sword damage = lots of healing. A Priest of Berath (starting ACC of 20 only) can use the talent "the Pallid Hand" to get +10 accuracy with great swords, which lifts him on the level of Fighters (30 base ACC). Add Weapon Focus Soldier and the usual accuracy buffs a Priest has (Blessing, Devotions, Minor Avatar etc.) and you can see that hitting enemies will not be a problem at all. It's still a Priest so the main focus is on the spells - but often, once you are finished with your spells or want to spare spells for later, you want to do something mundane with your Priest. This one can. It's also great to be able to whack some sense into backline rushers who think they can just annoy your casters. To make the melee combat more fun and interesting I added Runner's Wounding Shot (the 80% DoT stacks with Wounding) and the Girdle of the Driving Wave (which gives you Knockdown 1/encounter which can be super useful against rushers) - so you will have two special melee attacks per encounter at least. If you want to get even more you can pick up Envenomed Strikes instead of Savage Attack or Apprentice's Sneak Attack. It's 3/rest - but very strong if you take it early - and its damage scales well with Might, too. Remember: you can always retrain... Also Gatecrasher Gloves can be fun: Clear Out with high MIG and good INT is no joke. Cheers and have fun!

Yeah from what I can tell

Went approx 1 hour into Indy. So far not bad, will continue. Animations in cutscenes feel a bit janky at times, but oh well. Other than that, getting a bit of a Deus Ex-y exploration vibe so far. Hoping this continues for the rest of the game.

Awesome! I really don't know why some mechanics - such as keywords - are obscured in the first place. Deadfire is way better than PoE in that regard, but still not great.

I would say that 'biological female' is not a remotely useful term, and frequently it is not used for clarity, (because that is not what it provides) it is used with the intent to hurt and deny the identity of trans women. Because frequently it is used in conjunction with calling a trans woman a 'biological male'. To demonstrate why I don't think 'biological female' is a particularly useful term, in this or any context, I'm going to talk briefly about Mack Beggs. Mack was the subject of an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary entitled Mack Wrestles. He was a collegiate wrestler, and in 2017 he beat Chelsea Sanchez to win the Texas Girls' 110 lb championship. If you're wondering why Mack, a person I've just used the pronoun 'he' for, was wrestling against a girl in a girls' championship, it's because Texas athletic rules at the time had a rule that you must compete in the league for the sex assigned at birth. Mack is a trans man, or as someone might ignorantly say, a 'biological female'. But, crucially, Mack is obviously not who people like the author of that crappy article are talking about when they refer to 'biological females'. Now they could say 'biological females who haven't transitioned to men', but guess what, there's already a term for that, and that term is 'cis woman'. So no, Bruce, I would say to anyone wanting to use the term 'biological females' to refer to women who are not trans, do not do this, say 'cis women'. You will be achieving a better level of clarity and as a bonus, not making trans women feel trash by the comparison. Of course a big problem with using 'capable of having children' as the definition is that many are not. Not after menopause. Not if you're sterile. Not, for many, if you've had certain conditions like endometriosis. Some people prefer definition relating to numbers of X and Y chromosomes, with the issue being that some people may instead be born with XXY, or XO, or have the usual expected chromosomes but not have the sexual characteristics to match. And for most people you or I interact with, their number or type of chromosomes or what sexual organs they have will never be any of our business. In my day to day life, in the ways I interact with someone, what someone is 'biologically' is as meaningless as it is hard to pin down. Socially, in terms of how I relate to people, I'm gonna find terms like 'man', 'woman' or 'non-binary' with adjectives like 'cis' or 'trans' if further clarification is needed, infinitely more useful. As it relates to sport, however: Sport isn't fair. Some people are taller. They have an unfair advantage over me in a bunch of sports like basketball or volleyball where height matters, and no amount of training will make that not true. Michael Phelps has an abnormally large lung capacity. I'm not averse to requiring a certain testosterone level at certain levels of competitive sport, but in the overwhelming majority of cases my stance is: let women play sport with women, let men play sport with men, stop proposing dumb stuff like a whole separate league for the three trans people in the state.

Sounds like Tactician/Cipher. If you plan to cast a lot of Deception spells as CC I would recommend a Beguiler instead of Ascendant or Soulblade. Since you plan to become Brilliant anyway you don't really need Ascension. Soulblade is nice in combo with Tactician (can spam Soul Annihilation), but not so nice if you want low Might and want to cast CC and buffs. Beguiler gets focus from casting Deception spells. If the spell is cheap and can hit several enemies at once (Phantom Foes, Secret Horrors) you can gain (a lot) more focus than you spend. And sicne you want to cast Phantom Foes a lot anyways... You don't have to afflict the enemies before: the Phantom Foe spell itself already unlocks the focus gain: first the flanked affliction is added and THEN the game checks if the enemies are afflicted and you should get the focus refund. Little weird, but good for the Beguiler. But Ascendant would also be okay. You can check out the mechanics of Unbending in this post: It doesn't scale with MIG because the height of the healing tick is directly derived from the damage you received. It's the same with draining weapons, where the amount of healing is based on the damage you do and also not influenced by MIG. Keeping MIG at 10 is okay, but dumping it (below 10) is a rel. bad idea because this would mean a multiplicative malus for both damage dealt and healing done (see Constant Recovery, Second Wind/Athletics, Pain Block etc.). In general you want to avoid damage and healing maluses, because their impact is too big for the few points you spare. But as I said: 10 (no bonus, no malus) is okay. Unfortunately going from 3% to 0% bonus isn't that same degration as going from 0% to -3%. Your Resolve should only be super high if you want very high deflection and will defenses - and if you want to shorten hostile effects' duration (on you). That's most often the case if you are a tank. If you don't plan to tank a lot you don't need a lot of Resolve. If you do it's a good idea to raise it (and also use deflection gear such as a shield, bracers/cloak/ring/armor with deflection bonuses etc.). On the other hand: if you plan to become basically immortal from Unbending you don't need high deflection anymore. I guess I'd go mediocre so that it's not too bad before Unbending but also isn't "wasted" too much after Unbending becomes accessible. A caster in general profits a lot from high DEX. Good ection economy and reactivity is important for a "smooth" feeling when casting spells. The longer your casts need the higher the chance that you'll get interrupted, especially when going solo. Fighter/Cipher can achieve nice accuracy via abilities, so maxing PER isn't necessary. I would still keep it at >15, esp. solo. Else it could be annoying to not be able to find all traps and secrets. Discovery of those is governed by your final PER value. Instead of Squid's Grap you can also use Kapana Taga (club) or Gipon Prudensco (padded armor).

I don't know/care about "woke" but sometimes I'm a little tired of all the constant "female protagonist" games (when you can't choose) in a lot of the games - well, at least re: those that aren't purposefully otp machismo-action/godofwar/military/whatever fantasy. I just sometimes (well, ok, often) don't want female protagonists. I weirdly don't relate most of the time, or don't like many female VA's, perhaps why any "gaming imbalance" never bothered me in the first place. What I've always wanted is a kind of equal numerical balance of all the tropes/issues/genres/hoohaa of the moment. So there's plenty of options/styles etc. all around, all the time. Which I know is unrealistic to expect, and it never happens - always swings one way or the other to extremes as trends. Ah well. I was considering wasting money on the Indy game out of curiosity re: performance on my aging rig - plus he's a non-otp-machismo male protagonist - but after skimming through a few ppl playing it, it looks ... kinda boring. I mean if one really wanted an Indy game to capture an Indy feel, it looks good for that - I just mean, for my gameplay tastes. I might still waste money on it tho, could be false viewing impression. Not paying the early-access price hike tho.

This just in: new Indiana Jones is woke because Indy has a female sidekick (like in all Indy movies/games) and you punch NAzis in the face

This will be my last post about this topic, probably for a long while, because I am tired of it explaining it again and again, and this is not a correct thread as well. You know, I am a member of progressive political party with a seat in municipial office, and our political party has now pretty nice sample, why we lost last two national elections. So I am not talking out of my ass, when I say, when you push to much your ideology, you will start getting more and more resistance within your own moderate electorate, who are in the core your allies, but they simply do not want to be called all different kind of insults, because they also happen to be religious. And all this is for more than a decade fueled by Russian propaganda, which is turning this into extremes. My own parents are religious, and they are always voted for a political parties who support marriage for everyone, despite that, there are people in my party and a lot our supporters, who call even people like them bigots, and this insults me. And as a consequences of these actions, we have lost a lot of center and center right voters, and becuase of that, we are now slowly turning into Belarus I have very similar experience with my close friends, who changed their voting preferences during the last days, because they either felt insulted by some of our “fans” or they read some russian propaganda piece on Facebook. And all of this happend, because we have pushed in some topics to much, and the same happened in USA, as the mind of the human being is everywhere the same. Thankfuly our party has the data now, and we started to cooperate with more moderate personas, and using more moderate language. This in turn led to our party losing our most hardcore “fans” but the total number of voters have risen in the latest polls. Our political views are still the same, everyone knows it, but the people prefer the “milder” conversation. Some liberal people really loves to live in their bubble, looking down at everyone who is not 100% aligned with their worldvuew, but if they want to change the world for the better, they first have to understand, that they need allies in the conservative spectrum as well, as they will be always in the minority, if staying alone. Else there would never happened things like laws allowing marriage for everyone in extremely religious countries like Spain or Ireland So yeah, people now have two gamechanging options, either stopping to call their potential allies with all kind of names, when they do not share their worldview (you can see many of such insults even in this thread), or keep acting surprised how the populist and far right movements fuelled by Russian propaganda get more and more popular among general population And yes, the Russian propaganda works overtime in gaming world as well, because they are very well aware, how big population of the western world has gaming as their most beloved hobby. And many of the “outrage” youtubers are directly paid by them (and maybe to your surprise, they pay them on both sides to further the grow the divide). I will be on my way now as well…

Avowed forces you to hear politics at about the same rate as both Pillars of Eternity games. Hope that helps.

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. ~Mike Tython Luckily (?), weve been in a constant state of warfare for the last 20-something years so were kinda good at it. What we really need to do is revitalize the US industrial base. Blot out the very sun with cruise missile swarms!

I want one https://i.imgur.com/MFTRcXM.mp4

Trying to catch a few previews and news of dat new Indy game, and thinking: You know, it's fine that apparently we get a WOKE GAME warning now on every single game years before release. (I fully expect Kingdom Come II to get flagged by at least some attention seeker and clickbaiter at some point as well). However, I'd rather be warned about DORK GAME. God Of War has puzzles your pet hamster won't get stuck on. The Witcher witcher senses itself and never leaves its tutorial. Generally, Nintendo asks more of its audience than M-rated Western blockbusters these days. The jury's still out on Indy, and Indy has always been brawns AND brains. But srsly, where's the warists when you actually need them? Maybe they're fine with themselves and their kids being conditioned to not THINK for a second before falling for all the ragebait on the internet, who knows. To end on something positive, I found something new about Kindcom Come II. And it's glorious.

Yeah... some people were apprehensive at the prospect of facing Russia after Syria but before Ukraine. Sometimes the image in your head is more intimidating than reality once it gets put to the test. Besides Syria, Russian military units are also active all over central and western Africa. Maybe there is a Molotov-Ribbentrop pact equivalent for partitioning Africa? edit: between Russia and China that is

We were told not to eat mushrooms too (through the grapevine, because officially In USSR Bad Things NEVER Happen!), but there were levels, like "It's your liver" and "Definitely not these". It also birthed a joke - "Q: Can you eat mushrooms from Chernobyl? A: Sure, if you can catch them".

Carnage can trigger multiple times, but if it does in a short time frame (for example when Swift Flurry/HBD procs) the game will tell you something like "similar effect already applied". So it doesn't really "stack" like it did in PoE1. Weapon effects which get triggered not only by weapon attacks but on spells etc., too (universal), should also proc on Carnage hits (or kills): Scordeo's Edge: Double Strike Sungrazer: Return Orbit Engoliero do Espirs: Cruel Blade and Blade Feast The Twin Eels: Breath of Life Azure Blade: Wrong Place, Wrong Time Sanguine Greatsword: Thirsty Blade and Parched Blade Oathbreaker's End: Found Guilty/Innocent Dire Talon: Tooth and Claw Aamiina Legacy: Slayer of Beasts The Spine of Thicket Green: Purge Decay Wicked Beast: Wild Heart Amaliorra: Ash and Dust Amaliorra: Innevitable Decay Whispers of Yenwood: Soul Cutter Xoti's Sickle: Soul Reaper List originally composed by @Constentin Lévine

Yeah I did that (advanced settings as well, disc release). There are some micro freezes in busy areas that seem more to do with A-Life though, that is AI entering the fold and spawning. Plus there is one underground sequence so far where the fps drop (very briefly). So the game isn't completely without drops even on a 2019/2020ish computer (that's what my PC is roughly spec'd at, not a high end one though). Overall, the game plays fine. Also gave Call Of Pripyat a shot for the first ever time. Seems they went into the Stalker 2ish direction years ago already, with more open maps and all. There's also surprisingly few battles so far in that one, unless you actively engage every mutant roaming the zones. Considering that the introduction states there'd be just like 100-200 stalkers roaming the entire area, that seems more believable. Internet rumor has it that THQ pushed them to have more gunfights for Shadow Of Chernobyl back in 2007. Considering that was also the year Bioshock's devs were scared chicken of boring the FPS crowd if they didn't introduce more stuff to shoot in the face (sorry, German), I'm almost inclined to believe that rumour. Watching a couple Chernobyl docs these days too. Still remember when we had to wash our hands after playing outside in kindergarten (I was in my last kindergarten year in Germany, April 1986 was a couple months before I went to elementary school that summer). #allindazone

I am not transgender, and I don't personally know well anyone who is (or if I do, they have not informed me). My interactions with people who have made it immediately known that they are transgender have been consistently unpleasant and unwelcome, but it's not exclusive to them, that's always the case with those who immediately make whatever their identity is known to everyone and anyone right off the bat, no matter what it may be: an identity is never adequate substitute for personality. I don't really even believe in assigning meaning to "he", "she", or "they" beyond it being a useful tool of language to make clear as to whom is being referred to in conversation, and I have said as much to others in real life conversation, to people both ardently pro-transgenderism and vehemently against it, where a not untypical retort from the latter group is to mockingly refer to me as she/her, but again, as I really don't care, it's always quickly dropped because of how little it actually impacts reality in any meaningful way beyond confusing others when someone uses the wrong ones. The former group will usually just be happy if you're willing to try to use the right ones, which I do, because again, it really doesn't matter to me, it's just arbitrary connotations of language, which itself is made-up, so why not try to respect others if you can, especially when it seems to matter a great deal to them even if it doesn't to you? But the option in these games to switch from one to the other is always the absolute barest lip service, with zero content or mechanics designed behind it, it's just a simple flag that is checked to say "the player picked a male/female character, swap any said pronouns to the opposite option that we've already designed to account for (or a neutral/third option that they've defined)". That's it, it probably took all of half an hour to an hour for one person to implement, maybe a little more to integrate it into the character creation UI. Wow, so woke...get a grip.

Just skipping past the part of character creation that lets you change your pronouns or going into your game settings to disable the game from letting you change them is effectively the exact same thing (and I would find any suggestion of the contrary to be quite hilarious: I'd genuinely love to see someone explain how the game asking you about it on one page is to-o-otally different from being asked about it on another page), but if it makes the mouth-foaming troglodytes mad that they can't do the latter, I'm against including it as an option.

We're now at talking about options to turn off options designed to make people feel included in order to make people feel included that don't feel included because they don't like inclusionary options even though there's the option to just leave them on their default setting. Did you come up with the Starchild in Mass Effect 3? edit: And with that, I think I'm out. Have fun.

Are you suggesting to create a safe space for Joe Somebody the Slightly Conservative snowflake so they (*snicker*) don't get triggered by an option in a game? Sorry, but that makes no sense in the context of a silly toggle that lets you set your pronouns in the game. It already is a toggle, and everyone is free to keep the default pronouns for their picked character gender. In all the games I have played so far that have a pronoun option, it was pre-filled with the default for your picked gender, and it is entirely optional to switch between the usual sets, i.e. he/him, she/her, they/them. It changes nothing else about the dialogue because that really just puts your choice into placeholders in the dialogue files that already have to be there to account for your character's gender choice. No dialogue was hurt in making the feature.

I'm officially on team red again, because I just bought a 7800 XT for $400. I figured that I'm going to need the 16 GB of VRAM in order to weather out the Trump administration, so I'd best get it now before prices go crazy. If it doesn't play Bloodborne, it's going straight into the nearest dumpster, I won't even return it. Though $400 is relatively 'cheap' for GPUs by today's standards, it is the most I've ever spent on a GPU even adjusted for inflation - it's just never been something I've spent all that much on, historically speaking*. And since the price-comparable nvidia offerings come with a much more paltry offering of VRAM, worse rasterization performance, and only offer 'better' AI upscaling and frame generation features that I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole anyways in return, there really wasn't that much reason to go with nvidia this time around...unless there are compatibility issues, which I will be checking thoroughly once again just like the last time I had an AMD card. That last AMD card (a Vega, I believe) was immediately launched into the sun, so let's hope this time goes a little better. *Even now, I still spent more on the CPU for my current build - at the time of purchase, anyways.

I get what you mean, but I don't think it's just Diablo where this comes from.

Got me in the first half.

Hubby took the whole holiday week off. Me: "What cha gonna do/what do you wanna do? Day trips? Anything?" (his back thing limits activities a lot now) Him: "Kinda, maybe, dunno. It's winter. And I'm cold." ...he's currently watching TV lying on the couch, cocooned like a burrito in giant fluffy blankets. So cute.

The padding in BG3 was all those empty containers you had to shift through to find the ones with something in them. Remove those, halves the game time.

Well, if DAVe became like this because of Fallen Order's popularity, then presumably the next DA game will be modeled after BG3.

Fextralife has them too. Though, a skill calculator would be awesome. Need need need. Edit: I may just write one. Hopefully I can get it hosted easily.

Tbh, for me BG3 is too big already. Those 100+ hours behemoths are a tough sell on me now. I'd rather have a shorter game with way more story branching. Imo this is what Outer Worlds did well. Or Alpha Protocol back in the days.

Done with the game. The game has two rather big problems, only one of which is Bioware's fault. Marketing. Well, what's in a name anyway? The first is EA marketing as RPG, while in reality it is Thedas: Fallen Dragon. It is hard to stress this enough. The Veilguard is not an RPG, it is a 3D action adventure that plays mostly like the Jedi series, with a different abilities tacked on to make the combat more flashy than it was in Fallen Order (I have not played Survivor, so I cannot commet on any advancements over Fallen Order). The combat has about the same substance as the one in Fallen Order, but it certainly looks, feels and plays a lot better. The other problem with calling this an RPG is that there are barely any decisions to make, and only two of those have consequences - and there never is an alterantive way to handle quests. Bioware really dropped even the pretense of having morally questionable options for the player to follow through. Even Mass Effect's paragon and renegade system looks inspired in comparison. Which, again, is fine for an action adventure. The ability/skill tree is a bit bigger than the one in Fallen Order too, with more variety and different playstyles. The exploration of Veilguard is also similar, with companion abilities substituted for the upgradeable driod in Fallen Order. The problem is that it still isn't that much fun, or challenging. It only very seldomly goes beyond PRESS X FOR AWESOME, and the exploration element is generally fun with a capital c Caveat, which neatly leads to the second really large problem of the game: pacing. We're on a record pace to... boredom, I guess. Sigh. The pacing is downright dreadful. The game opens with roughly four hours of not very impressive content. The abilities one can use are very limited, the combat thus highly repetitive and the areas are rather constricted hallways designed to funnel you from one main quest to the next. It is only after recruiting the first companion and finishing another part of the main quest that the game itself opens up, at which point your character has a few levels under their belt and has unlocked a few more abilities and passives that transform the combat gameplay from boring to good enough. It is precisely at that time, before the game opens up or starts playing well, where you're introduced to token minority elves, one of which is a companion that joins you. It is a sad testament to the times we're living in that the minority representation in the game (which was almost always a part of Bioware games anyway) had such a terrible reception, but there's no second chances for a first impression, as the saying goes. You're already not having fun at this point in the game, and then you see that Bioware wasted development resources on brown and east-asian looking elves. In an ideal world players would realize that for a project this size, no part of gameplay, quest design or writing (outside of Taash, who we will talk about later) has suffered a lack of resources because someone was tasked to make brown textures for characters, but the polarization is what it is. The game sucks because it is woke - but that just is not the case. The game (almost inarguably) sucks at this point because it is not fun to play, and that is not the fault of Strife the Brown Elf. It then proceeds to go on for too long, especially the exploration and parcouring part of the game. Fallen Order had the same issue - and neither game is very good at telling the player that certain parts of the maps are cut off until quest progress or the abilities of a newly recruited companion opens that part of the map. I probably spent a good five hours of my playtime (roughly 75 hours, which was enough time to experience all of the content) trying my damndest to figure out riddles and/or ways to reach areas and loot that just were inaccessible at that point. The other part that is badly paced are companion interactions. This is arguably the worst part, because at the end of the day, it is still a game (ostensibly) made by Bioware. For the first twenty hours I have played the game, the companions all seemed shallow and flat. Friends that played the game also agreed. The problem here is, again, the pacing of the game, as companion interactions and dialogues are interwoven with side and main quests, and often are contingent on reloading the Lighthouse (your base of operation) map, i.e. you need to go into the game world and come back for a new set of interactions to be loaded once they're ready to be presented. So if, for some reason, you have unlocked three interactions with a companion, you can do one, then you have to go back into the world and come back the Lighthouse for the next. This is such a dumb decision that whoever came up with the idea needs to be fired, because it means you're best off with going back to the Lighthouse whenever you have finished a quest, instead of just questing naturally in the game world. Gating was always there in companion interactions in Bioware games, of course, but they were usually also frontloaded with an enormous amount dialogue to be explored with them right from the start. With a few exceptions (most notably the Antivan Crow companion, who remains boring and flat throughout the game), the companions in The Veilguard aren't (much) less developed than those in other games. They're just not front-loaded in the usual Bioware manner, and that is much to their detriment. To recap, we're now a couple of hours into the game, it does not play well, it is not fun, there's no real sense of exploration, the main quest is on rails going through several limited hallways (of which most are out in the open, to make the contrast even worse), you had an annoying "nervous and talky scientist type" Korean looking elf lady foisted on you for a companion whom you could have exactly one really short conversation with and you have just reached Treviso, a city in an "RPG" that is basically also just a colletion of hallways (which kind of makes sense, as Thedas' version of Venice) where any and all exploration options are seemingly unreachable. To make matters worse everyone talks in a weird Italian style accent that the voice actors were clearly uncomfortable with and no one sounds in any way natural. Sprinkle your own character's somewhat dumb dialogue in this part of the game on top, and you have one recipe for a disaster. Where it doesn't matter at all that all of that gets better the more you play. I mean, who's still playing at this point? By now you're angrily shouting about how bad the game is on social media. Depending on your political and social leanings one might as well blame wokeness and DEI for everything that is bad in this game, ignoring that Bioware games were pretty "woke" all along. Taash And then there's Taash (Taash was born a girl, for the record, for anyone who has no intention of playing the game). Taash is Bioware's attempt at making a non-binary character, and while they had a wonderful setup for them, they never followed up on it. Taash is Qunari, but their mother fled to Rivia when Taash was little. So as Taash grew up, they were neither really Qunari nor Rivaini. There's also conflict with her mother, neatly established during the first companion quest, which is actually pretty good. Her mother complains that Taash dresses and behaves more like a man (for those reading this who are not familiar with the Qunari, they're basically fantasy muslims with a caste system) than a woman, which frustrates Taash. Taash is an accomplished warrior and dragon hunter - job reserved for men under the Qun. Can you already see how this might make for a decent metaphor for not feeling particularily like either male of female? Taash doesn't feel like adhering to the Qun, nor do they feel like being fully Rivaini. Naturally this looks like a decent way to bring a non-binary companion into a fantasy setting without it being immersion-breaking, right? As the player character, you can probably gently guide Taash towards understanding their place in between these two cultures. Right, except then it just stops, and the game and all other characters start using the term "non-binary" as if we were in a contemporary setting, crashing you hard out of any immersion. It eventually culminates in a really weird scene with Taash and her mother where Taash has a "coming out" as "non-binary" ("Hey mom, I'm non-binary!") that is so awkward that it leaves players facepalming hard. This is all handled about as well as Adira was in Star Trek: Discovery. Like, not at all. The setup falls of a cliff so hard it becomes a disservice. It's not just a case of bad representation, it is actively hurting the cause by introducing an element that strains the already tenous enjoyment of the game. What was that saying with the road to hell and good intentions? You know what's the worst part? Taash is a genuinely fun companion with lots of funny interactions. She also has the best apology line in any Bioware game when she's having a minor fight with Emmrich, the necromancer companion. "I'm sorry I called you a skull-f... liker. Skull-liker." Conclusion So, what's the conclusion? I liked The Veilguard, in spite of all the problems. Partially that is because I have an OCD-ish tendency to finish games I have begun playing, so I kept playing, and eventually found myself immersed in the game, started to like the companions and genuinely enjoyed the flashy combat and exploration. It takes a good eight to fifteen hours of playing the game to reach that point, and I don't blame anyone who quits well before that. If, for some reason, you still want to play the game, then make sure to rush through the main quests until you have gathered all your companions. Then you can explore, and make sure to return to the Lighthouse as often as you can, to check for companion interactions. That means those marked on the map as well as where you can see two or more companions standing next to each other. That means you should go there and listen to them talking. The game will be better for it, really. Oh, and I hope you're like me and don't care for exploring city-settings in RPGs. While the game does have two cities, they're not what you'd expect from one in an RPG. I don't mind, but others might.